Internet Design for Emerging Markets

Abstract

literacy, meaning poor ability to read and comprehend written text. In fact, almost the entire adult illiterate population of 775 million lives in developing countries. Product designs that rely on textual communication to ensure that a product or service is used properly—for example, instruction manuals or product labels—are at risk of failing for this reason alone. Therefore, people who design products and services to be used in developing countries put literacy high on their list of challenges. Products or services that involve a webor mobile-based user interface must deal with the additional problem of a lack of technical literacy. Although global in reach, web and mobile technologies have not reached all markets equally. Average Internet penetration in Africa, for example, is just 21.3 percent, compared to 84.9 percent in North America. People in developing countries who do have access to mobile devices often use older phones that require triple-tap text entry and use soft keys whose meaning changes according to context—not an easy system to figure out, even for a fully literate person. Attaining technical literacy is challenged further by frequent power outages, poor network coverage, shared phones that are often swapped—and lost—by friends and family, and expensive data plans. Therefore, designs that rely on technical literacy to ensure that a product or service is used properly—to navigate menus, enter search terms, or use contextual soft keys, for example—are also at risk of failing. Textual and technical literacy clearly are critical considerations for designers, particularly in the context of digital user interfaces in developing markets. This raises the question of what outcomes should be expected from designs that tackle these issues. Are the most desirable outcomes the ability to understand the com-